


Untouchable

by missazrael



Series: Heats [4]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: ABO, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Knotting, Pack Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-04-25
Packaged: 2018-06-04 10:58:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6655270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missazrael/pseuds/missazrael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Annie?”</i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>She starts and whirls around, furious at both the interruption and that she allowed herself to be taken unaware.  She’s been on edge lately, her warrior crawling under her skin, and she very nearly snarls at whoever dared interrupt her.</i></p><p>  <i>Armin stands behind her, bundled up against the cold, wearing his ridiculous floppy straw hat and holding out a thermos in an offering.  “I made some tea.  Do you want some?”</i></p><p>Annie thought she was above it all, that she didn't need a mate, but then a cold day towards the end of the year proved her wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Untouchable

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that, unlike the other alphas in this AU, Annie isn't a particularly kind or stable alpha. She's more aggressive, and while things end up fine for everyone, she isn't as careful about getting consent as the other ones are. If that's something that bothers you, please be aware that it's in here.

Cold. Aloof. Untouchable.

_If you let them close, they’ll hurt you._

Lessons repeated, day after day, until they were as much a part of her as her kicks, as her warrior, as the ice that took the place of blood, running through her veins. Sometimes, she imagined she was completely made of ice, a carved figure given mobility, and though she knew it was childish, she never gave up on pretending. 

It wasn’t long after that that she discovered her ability to harden her warrior, to build a barrier between herself and the rest of the world, an icy tomb for her to sleep, dreamless, shrouded away and safe and silent.

_You can’t depend on anyone except yourself._

Four children had left the village together, three embraced by their parents as they left the village gates, the fourth shuffled off to the side. Her father had whispered in her ear then, the final lesson, the one that the others didn’t know, the one she intends to keep before all the others.

_You come back to me. You survive, Annie, and you bring yourself home._

She had nodded, allowed herself a single moment to cling to her father, to hold onto him tightly, to imprint the memory of his arms, his smell, the sound of his voice, into her memory. And then she’d been what he wanted her to be, and had walked out of the village with her head held high and her back ramrod straight, her eyes burning at the corners but dry of tears.

She would do as he asked. She’d survive, no matter what the cost, and bring herself home.

~*~

The exercise yard echoes, the sounds of cadets grunting and muffled blows unusually crisp in the chilly fall air. When the wind blows just right, Annie can smell snow in the air, far away, buried under the mingled scents of sweat and exertion and maneuver gear grease, there and then gone as quickly as it appears. Fall is almost over, she thinks, casually sending Jean flat on his back with a well-aimed ankle swipe; soon it will be winter, the cold and snow blowing in from the mountains, and then spring, and then… and then everything will end. All over again, the world will crumble around these tiny, petty humans, and they’ll hear their cries as they soar above it, held aloft by the human’s own devices and protected by the warriors under their skin. They’ll soar, and leave it all behind, and return to their village in triumph, the warriors who left and returned, the warriors who defeated the humans and brought their world to its knees.

And everything will be set back the way it should be, and Annie will go home to her father and warm her hands at his fire as she sits beside him and tells him about all she’s seen and done.

She doesn’t even entertain the idea that he might be dead, passed away during these five long years that she’s lived and walked among ants. Her father is as timeless as the sun, as the moon, as warriors and titans and gods and goddesses, ageless. He’ll be waiting for her.

He has to be waiting for her.

Instructor Shadis blows his whistle, the sound shrill and piercing, and hand to hand combat practice is over. Annie straightens up, rolling her shoulders, and bends to offer Jean a hand. Jean is loud and abrasive and disguises his fears with rolling bravado, but he’s largely harmless. Some of the humans are easy to hate, but not this one. He reminds Annie of a child pretending to be a man, all bluster and fury and largely meaningless, but if he were safe behind Wall Sina in the spring, she wouldn’t complain.

Jean looks up, his expression vaguely dazed, squinting into the fading afternoon light, and starts to reach for her hand. But then he breaks into a smile, bright and dazzling, his face rearranged for a moment into something almost handsome, and Annie stops, her brow furrowing. Another arm reaches past hers, and Jean clasps Marco’s hand as he’s pulled up, chuckling in a quiet, very un-Jean-like way as Marco starts fussing over him, brushing off his jacket and keeping one hand protectively on the small of Jean’s back. Annie watches the little drama, the way they’re like two planets orbiting each other, basking in each other’s light and warmth, and she feels something jog in her chest. It’s an unusual feeling, and she considers it as she turns away from Jean and Marco, dismissing them completely. It feels like something she might have known once, a long time, but then forgot.

It doesn’t matter. It will all be over soon enough, and Annie turns her head to the north, breathing deep as a chill wind blows through the practice yard.

~*~

She has always run cold, always been the one with winter in her veins. Reiner, Reiner _burns_ , generating heat deep inside himself, letting it build and build until it explodes outward, escaping in blasts that consume everything around it. She’s seen his warrior breathe fire, and knows Reiner is the same way: he lets it all churn inside him, like pressure building inside a teakettle, until the one way he can release it is in a high-pitched, endless scream. She’s seen the bruises he leaves on Bertolt, and knows that they are the least of what he could do, that Bertolt heals the worst of them before they skulk back to their quarters.

Bertolt… Bertolt steams, just as hot as Reiner but slower, like embers glowing in a dying fire. He releases his heat however he can, letting his stress and anxiety pour off him while hiding in Reiner’s shadow, while letting Reiner’s burning attract all the attention. He’s a coward, Annie knows, and always has been. She has no sympathy for him and his neuroses, and leaves it to Reiner to keep him in check. Reiner wants to be the alpha, he can be; he can keep his own damn mate in line, and make sure he does what needs to be done.

They don’t talk often, by Annie’s choice; she doesn’t need to know what’s happening in the boy’s barracks, and she doesn’t care what they get up to during their day. She has winter in her heart, she doesn’t need friends, she doesn’t need the close, dedicated companionship they share. But when Reiner goes into heat, and it’s Bertolt who goes to him, Bertolt who comes back with Reiner’s scent thick in his hair and on his clothes, Annie is livid with rage.

They meet in the woods, deep and far away from the camp, and Annie is both disgusted and not surprised in the slightest when she finds trees with their bark shredded away and their little clearing reeking of pheromones and sex. When the two boys slink into the clearing, smelling of each other and holding hands like a pair of children, Annie looses herself on them.

It takes only moments to have them both flat on their backs, staring up at her in shock. She stands with one foot on Bertolt’s chest and the other on Reiner’s throat, and when Bertolt tries to cringe against Reiner’s side, it just fans the ice storm in her chest.

“What the fuck is WRONG with you?!” she demands, digging her heel into the base of Reiner’s throat and making him gag. Bertolt is just as culpable, but it’s Reiner who bears the brunt of her fury, Reiner who gets her full weight across his neck. It’s always been Reiner in control, Reiner who wants so badly to be the leader, and he’s the one who needs to answer for their transgressions.

“Annie… shit…” Reiner gasps, and gets one hand around her ankle, circling it. She just bears down harder, closing off his airway entirely, and Reiner starts to choke.

“You _listen_ ,” she hisses, leaning over her knee and towards his rapidly reddening face, towards his bulging eyes and fruitless gasping. “What are you _thinking_? Did you forget _everything_?”

He waves his hand at her ankle, his fight to breathe starting to get desperate, and Annie lets up long enough for him to get a gulp of air before bearing down again.

“ _We’re not like them_ ,” she tells him, glaring down. “We’re not soldiers, we’re _warriors_ , and you’re just drawing attention to yourself!”

Then, as abruptly as it all began, it’s over; Annie is laying on her back, the breath knocked out of her, staring up at the star-filled sky and wondering what happened. She’s always been fast, though, and whips her legs up and in a circle, using the momentum to haul herself to her feet.

Bertolt is crouched over Reiner, who is curled in on himself, coughing raggedly and dragging air into his lungs. Bertolt is facing her, his lips curled back in a snarl, and as Annie watches, steam starts billowing off his back and his shoulders start to swell. She realizes that he’s starting to shift, that his warrior is pushing against his skin, and a part of her, deep and hidden away and barely acknowledged, is relieved rather than horrified. Let him shift, let him explode into his warrior here and now, let the entire camp know. Let them run through these weak insects and destroy them all, let them leave no survivors, and then let them move towards the wall and bring it crumbling to pieces. Let them do it now, before any of them start to question.

Reiner lifts a hand and swats at Bertolt’s chest, and Bertolt looks down, caught between protectiveness and his usual uncertainty, and Annie gets slapped in the face by the scent of the pheromones billowing off both of them. It’s a heady, potent brew, and although it’s her first time smelling it, she knows exactly what it means.

“Are you serious?” she asks, incredulous, keeping her fighting stance, her arms still raised towards her face. Bertolt crouches lower over Reiner, his chest nearly shoving Reiner’s head back into the dirt, and a deep, throat-ripping snarl erupts from him, so loud in the little clearing that it startles a flock of birds into sudden, unexpected night flight. He looks like he’s going to turn to mist and disappear, the way he’s steaming, and Annie suddenly doesn’t have the patience to deal with either one of them.

“You know what? Fine.” She drops her hands and straightens up, and Bertolt’s growling grows quieter, his steam lessening. Annie lifts her head and inhales, drawing their mingled scents deep into her sinuses, and what she smells disgusts her. She wonders if they have any idea that they’re already mated to each other, and then decides that they probably don’t; Bertolt because he’s too weak to imagine himself with a mate, and Reiner because he’s too damn dense about his feelings to realize it. “If you two want to play with each other in the woods and put everything at risk, _fine_. When the walls don’t fall, it will be on your heads, not mine.”

She squares her shoulders and spins on her heel, showing them her back in a blatant display of superiority, and starts stalking away, back to the barracks. Let them make their mistakes with each other, let them tear each other apart and then steam away their injuries together… fine. _Fine_. She doesn’t need them. She’s never needed them. She doesn’t need anyone, and a fluctuation in hormone levels isn’t going to change that.

She is a child of the north winds. She doesn’t need the boys of summer.

~*~

But it’s not only Reiner and Bertolt who succumb to their hormones. Mikasa goes next, closely followed by Eren, and the girls’ barracks is fraught with tension and barely concealed aggression until Mikasa’s heat ends. Then it’s Jean, and a blind man could figure out what happened there, from the reek on Jean’s skin to the way Marco shielded him from Reiner and Bertolt to the shamefaced way the two other boys acted around Jean for about a week. Annie ignores all of it, refusing to let it get to her. If they want to play around with these infants, with these _children_ , then so be it. _She’s_ not the one who is going to have to kick down a wall someday and bring their world crashing in around their ears.

In the last month of the year, when the days are short and cold, it happens all at once: everyone who hadn’t had a heat already, it seems, goes into one at the same time, and those who’ve been heated before are driven to distraction by all the scents and pheromones stirring around them. On one day, a day shortly before an ancient holiday no one celebrates anymore but still remembers—Mina hangs dark green leaves with white berries around the girls’ barracks, and Samuel scratches stars in the frost on the windows—only a handful of students show up to lectures; the rest gone off into the heat sheds. The instructor throws up his hands in disgust, but then releases those who showed up, claiming no point in teaching and then having to repeat himself when the others return. 

Annie thinks he just wants to go home to his family for a holiday named after a man long forgotten behind the walls.

Either way, it’s a rare, free afternoon, and she trots outside into the frosty, still air. Giving the heat sheds a wide berth, but still catching a whiff of the thick stew of pheromones rising from them—her nipples grow hard and tight under her shirt, much to her disgust—Annie moves to the practice yard. She intends to practice her kicks, something guaranteed to take her mind off all the nonsense around here lately, but ends up sitting on a bench instead, looking out into the cold, silent day and drawing breath in through her nose. She visualizes, a technique her father taught her, long ago. She sees herself transforming, sees her warrior growing around her, protecting her. She sees herself calling the others, the brainless, simple titans, the ones who don’t know what they are and can’t remember what they were. She sees herself leading them to the walls, to the hole in the wall. She sees them swarming the city; which one doesn’t matter, hasn’t been decided yet, only that they pour in like water, flooding into the city and drowning it with their hunger. She sees the world of men falling, sees them overrun by the mindless, eternally hungry titans, sees all of them falling away into silence. And she sees herself, in her human form, cresting the last hill that leads to their village and seeing her father waiting for her at the village’s gate.

“Annie?”

She starts and whirls around, furious at both the interruption and that she allowed herself to be taken unaware. She’s been on edge lately, her warrior crawling under her skin, and she very nearly snarls at whoever dared interrupt her.

Armin stands behind her, bundled up against the cold, wearing his ridiculous floppy straw hat and holding out a thermos in an offering. “I made some tea. Do you want some?”

Annie wants to laugh, wants to ask him if he has any idea how close he came to being attacked. But it’s Armin, and she knows he doesn’t mean any harm. Instead, she tucks her hair behind one ear and shrugs, scooting over a little on the bench. “If you want to share.”

“I brought two cups for a reason.” Armin sits down beside her, and it’s almost shocking how warm he is, how she can feel heat billowing off him. How brightly these little insects burn, she muses as she accepts a battered tin cup full of steaming tea from him, how quickly they devour all their resources.

“Thanks.” She sips the tea, and her eyebrows lift in surprise; it’s sweet and milky, not the usual dark sludge they serve in the mess.

Armin grins when he sees her reaction. “With everyone off in the sheds, no one’s watching the kitchen.”

She doesn’t say anything, just continues sipping tea, but she’s a little impressed. She’d never have thought Armin would have enough spine to sneak valuable resources like honey and milk from right under the cook’s nose.

They sit in silence for awhile, drinking their tea, and when her cup is empty, Armin pours her more without her needing to ask.

Annie is midway through her third cup, and feeling like the ice inside her is… not melted, exactly, but thawed, grown unusually mushy and soft, when she realizes that she can smell Armin. She can smell him, and he smells _good_ , not like the usual sweat and crusty sock odor that most of the boys (and not a few of the girls) have. Armin smells like old books and summer sunshine and the scent of wildflowers on a breeze from far away, and she leans closer, close enough that their shoulders bump, trying to get a better whiff without making it obvious.

“More tea?” Armin doesn’t suspect anything, and Annie accepts more tea that she doesn’t want, just so Armin will move his arm and get his scent wafting upwards again. She closes her eyes and inhales deeply, and Armin’s scent, though not the strongest she’s ever smelled, still floods her senses and leaves her dazzled.

“Annie?” She opens her eyes, and Armin is watching her, his brows (pale and narrow like her own) drawn down in concern. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Fine,” she rasps. Except she’s not fine, is she? For everything she said to Reiner and Bertolt, for all the shit she’s given other cadets for their weakness with their hormones, it turns out she’s just as weak as they are. Annie licks her lips, watches Armin’s pupils expand in his bright blue eyes, and, before she can question or doubt herself any further, snakes her arm out and grabs his jacket, dragging him in for a rough, bruising kiss.

Armin squeaks when she grabs him and drops his cup, splashing lukewarm tea on their boots, but Annie hardly notices. His lips are slack and unmoving under hers at first, and she growls, deep in her throat, nipping at his lower lip until she draws the tang of blood. That gets Armin’s attention, and she feels a hand on her hair, soft and questioning, before Armin’s lips move under hers and he kisses her back. 

He’s not very good at it, far too gentle and considerate for her tastes, and Annie growls louder as she pushes on him, driving him back until he falls right off the bench, onto the cushioning snow. She dives down after him, covering his narrow, fragile body with her own, and it’s only then that Armin comes alive, pushing on her and squirming in the snow, his every movement exciting her and making her blood sing in her veins.

“Annie!”

Armin’s fractured cry gets her attention, and Annie sits up, propping her hands above Armin’s shoulders and looking down at him, her hair falling forward and into her eyes.

Armin is ruffled, his hair standing up in a fluffy halo around his head, his lips swollen and bitten. His eyes are rolling in his head and showing whites all around, like a startled horse, and he has both his hands on her shoulders, holding her back. His scent is wild, blooming all around them, and Annie can smell his fear, and it makes her ashamed. She can also smell his arousal, and feel it pressing against her thigh, but mostly she smells fear.

She rolls off him, onto her back, and sinks into the snow, letting it embrace her. She expects him to get up and run away, and when he does, she’s going to transform into her warrior and run into the woods, run deep into the woods, and kick down trees the size of buildings until this heat, this terrible, unknown heat, stops pulsing through her veins.

He doesn’t get up and run away. Armin lays beside her for a moment, panting and catching his breath, and she smells his fear ebbing away. The fear leaves, but the arousal is still there, tentative but growing, masking the fear scent until it’s hardly there at all. Armin rolls over and props himself onto his elbow, looking down at her as he smoothes down his hair.

“So, uh… you’re an alpha.”

She nods, not trusting herself to speak or look at him.

“And… you’re in heat?”

Annie shrugs; she doesn’t know, this has never happened before. She’s not turning feral, the way Reiner and then Bertolt did the first time, but then, she always was stronger than either of them.

Armin nods, worrying at his lower lip, making it bleed again, and Annie’s pulse picks up at the smell of his blood. “Do you want to go to one of the sheds?”

She starts, turning and staring at him in surprise. She hadn’t expected him to put it so baldly, to just _ask_ , but then, this is Armin she’s talking to. The pursuit of knowledge has never made him stop to consider all the consequences before, and there’s no reason it should stop him now. She raises an eyebrow in a silent question, and Armin nods.

“I’ll go with you.”

No. No, this isn’t how it’s supposed to be! She’s better than all this, she can rise above the hormones marinating in her brain and the lust coursing through her body! She’s not an animal, she’s not one of these _children_ , these _insects_ , she is a warrior, a child of winter, and she does not need what everyone else needs!

Armin misinterprets her reluctance, and hangs his head, his eyes shifting away from her. “It’s okay if you don’t want to. I understand.”

That’s what seals the deal. That the others would reject him, would ignore this beta and his beautiful, intoxicating scent, wouldn’t snap him up himself the moment he presented himself as willing… Annie snarls, loud and long, making Armin jump. She leaps to her feet, bending down to haul him up with her, and starts running towards the sheds. Armin stumbles, not as strong as she is, unable to keep up, and Annie stops long enough to toss him over her shoulder before pelting through the snow.

~*~

The sheds are all occupied. Annie can smell it long before they actually get to them, a heady, poignant musk hanging in the air, but she refuses to believe it. It’s not possible that _all_ of them are occupied, is it?

It is. They are.

She stands in front of them, Armin dangling helplessly over her shoulder—he’d protested a little at first, then given in and let her carry him—and gives voice to a loud, anguished snarl, loud enough that the activity in the nearest shed dies away as the occupants suddenly go quiet, hearing another alpha outside their door. She can feel herself vibrating, her whole body thrumming, overtaken by a need she’s never felt before, and Annie considers simply tearing through one of the shed doors and booting out whoever is in there. She can smell them, they’re not as strong as she is, she could take on both of them at the same time and still protect Armin.

Armin taps her lower back with one hand. “Annie? Can you put me down, please?”

She lowers him to his feet, keeping a grip on his arm, keeping him close to her. There are other alphas around, she can even smell Reiner and Bertolt, somewhere not far away, and they might try and steal him away from her. She can’t let that happen. This one is _hers_. She deserves it, she tells herself. Even icicles have to melt eventually, and she’s been so careful, worked so hard. She deserves at least one chance at the warmth that everyone else, even her fellow warriors, don’t deny themselves.

Armin doesn’t try to get away, and even leans against her, eyeing the sheds. “They’re all full, aren’t they?”

She nods, not trusting her voice. Anything she’d try to say right now would come out sounding like a snarl.

Armin bites his lower lip, looking at the sheds and thinking, and Annie lets him. She vibrates with impatience, but she lets him. She can’t think straight right now, she knows that, so if Armin can come up with an alternative, she’s going to be all ears.

“The stables?” he suggests after a moment. “Maybe the hay loft above them?”

“Good,” she rasps, and tugs him along. She doesn’t move as fast this time, and he’s able to keep up, jogging beside her, his breath panting in his lungs. His physicality is remarkably low, Annie thinks, but it doesn’t matter. She’s powerful and strong enough for both of them.

The stables are deserted, except for the horses, who have been fed and watered and are bundled against the cold. A few nicker at the intrusion, and one sticks its head over its stall door, curious about who might be visiting. Armin steps forward and strokes its nose, and the horse, deciding the humans haven’t come bearing treats, brings its head back into the stall and goes back to sleep.

“Come on.” Annie tugs on his wrist, leading him to the ladder that goes up to the hay loft.

“No one else had the same idea?” he asks, sounding surprised, but following regardless.

Annie almost scoffs at the question, but then remembers that Armin is a beta; his sense of smell is woefully inadequate, compared to hers, and he really can’t tell. For all he knows, there could be an orgy going on in the loft, and he wouldn’t know. That must be frustrating to him, to someone who likes to know everything that’s going on around him. It’s a secret world, hidden from his senses, and Annie realizes it’s just one of the many secrets being kept today.

“We’re alone,” she tells him, and pushes him towards the ladder. Armin starts climbing, and she follows close at his heels, inhaling his scent and watching his backside the entire way. Armin has a nice backside, round and pert, not quite feminine but not entirely flat and masculine either, and she likes it. 

The loft is still and empty, dim and private in the winter months, and Armin shivers, his breath billowing out in front of him in a cloud that looks like a shifter’s steam. “It’s cold up here,” he observes, his arms wrapping around his torso.

Annie doesn’t answer; the comment doesn’t need one, and she has other things on her mind. She prowls about, not quite sure what she’s looking for but knowing she’ll know it when she sees it. Armin trails after her, shivering and staying quiet.

It’s tucked away under the eaves, behind a stack of hay bales, and Annie breathes air in through her nose when she finds it. A secluded little area, the ceiling low and pitched above their heads, with a few blankets strewn across the hay and a water canteen set off to the side. She picks up the canteen and shakes it, listening to it swish, and nods. She can smell them, everyone who has been here before, everyone who has used this space. Some of the scents are ancient, hardly there any longer, ghosts of cadets who’ve come and gone. Others are more recent; she can smell Mina here, and Thomas Wagner, and some of the others who used this spot when they needed privacy.  
 Armin pokes his head in, and his eyes light up. “Nice!” He moves past her, his chest brushing her back, and her head is suddenly full of his scent, full of hormones and a deep, atavistic need that she can’t deny. Annie grabs him by the shoulders, spinning him around and driving him down onto the blanket nest, her mouth covering his as she growls and climbs on top of him.

Armin doesn’t resist her, besides a surprised squeak when she grabs him. He lets her push him down, lets her climb over him and push his legs apart with her knees, slotting herself between them. Later, Annie will realize this is something he’s thought about before, and of course he has; Armin is always prepared, always knows what’s going on around him. It’s something that will lead to his death later, she’ll think, and remember the taste of his lips on hers, the heat of his body pressed against her own.

When the time comes, she’ll make Reiner do it.

But that’s all in the future, and for once, Annie allows herself to focus on the here and now. She fumbles with the buttons and clasps on Armin’s jacket, her normally deft fingers gone clumsy with need, and Armin has to gently move her hands aside and do it on his own. When his jacket is open, she dives for the buttons on his shirt, ripping some of them off and sending them rolling away in her haste. She only stops once she’s exposed his throat and chest, and only then to shove her face into the crook between his neck and shoulder and inhale deeply, getting herself drunk on his scent. 

Armin laughs, high and pure and full of disbelief, and as she huffs at his shoulder, she feels him undoing her coat and pushing it off her shoulders. His hands are like lightning on her, burning and igniting along her nerve endings, and she lifts her head long enough to sit up and pull her coat and the hoodie underneath it off, exposing herself to the chilly air in the loft.

Armin’s eyes go wide when she strips out of her clothing, and she pauses, trembling, to let him look. Her breasts are small and high on her chest, hardly larger than a handful, and her body is almost devoid of curves. She’s not elegant, like Mikasa, or seductively curvy, like Mina. Even her warrior has a larger chest than she does; even Reiner is bigger on top. Annie ducks her head, letting her hair fall in front of her eyes, and she wars with herself, torn between wanting to run and needing to stay.

But then Armin reaches up and touches her chest, cupping her breasts in his hands, and she realizes that in his hands, she’s exactly the right size. “You’re beautiful,” he murmurs, his tone worshipful, and Annie lets herself smile, feeling a warm flush come over her cheeks.

She bends back down, sealing her mouth over his, and Armin kisses her back, his tongue snaking forward and into her mouth, an unexpected maneuver that sends thrills running up and down her spine. She growls, playful, and catches his tongue between her teeth, tugging on it before letting him loose, before chasing it with her own and exploring the inside of his mouth. His fingertips graze one of her nipples, and Annie gasps as it hardens under his touch, dancing on that line between pain and pleasure. Armin notices, and he grows cautious, touching it again with a feather’s touch, so light that it shouldn’t be able to make fire burn along her spine. She growls again, thrusting her chest forward into his hands, and when he pinches and squeezes, she makes a sound that’s almost a howl into his mouth.

More fumbling, more clothes torn and ripped. Annie isn’t sure how they do it, but they manage to get their pants off, and then they’re naked, pale skin against pale skin, and her belly feels like she’s swallowed a hot stone. She’s dripping wet, everything swollen and desperate between her legs, and she sits up, pushing one of his thighs between her legs and grinding down onto it, trying to make the burning, to make the _need_ , go away.

Armin—bright, brilliant Armin, who reads ahead on everything, who does whatever he can to be prepared for what’s coming ahead for him—takes his hands off her breasts, off her chapped and aching nipples, and winnows one between her legs. She whines as he touches her, as he spreads her apart and strokes his fingers on her secret, private places. She rocks towards him, and when one of his fingers slips up inside her, Annie screws her eyes shut and keens, pushing her hips forward into his hand. It’s not enough, it’s not enough to fill her, to take away her need; even two fingers isn’t enough, not really, and Annie is shocked to find herself near tears with frustration. But then he moves his thumb, pushes it up to the top of her cleft, where everything comes together, and when he strokes that spot, everything blooms inside her. She keeps rocking, massaged by his fingers inside and his thumb outside, and she feels herself tighten, all of her muscles throbbing, getting ready for… for _something_. She rocks on him, and Armin watches her, and it’s not until he reaches up with his free hand and gives one of her nipples a sharp, hard pinch that she screams, crying out as everything clamps down around his fingers and she releases a flood onto his leg.

Annie collapses forward, her entire body shaking, and Armin wraps his arm around her, holding her close as she shakes and trembles her way through her orgasm. His fingers are still inside her, locked tight by her internal knot, and she wonders distantly if she’s hurting him. If she is, he doesn’t say anything, and as she starts to come back into herself, she nuzzles at his neck, bathing in his scent. It’s changed, a little, hardly noticeable if she hadn’t been paying attention, but she thinks she smells satisfaction, like he knows he’s done well.

“How… how did you know?” she asks after awhile, when her breathing and heart rate are back to normal and she can feel her muscles slowly starting to unclench from around his fingers.

“Where to touch you?” He strokes her hair with his free hand, and it reminds her of quieter, more peaceful days, before she knew she was a warrior and all that it entailed.

She nods, and he laughs, sounding a little ashamed. “I read about it. You can find almost anything you want to know in a book, if you look in the right ones.”

Of course that’s how he knew. Annie feels her muscles unclench, and Armin slides his fingers free, bringing them up to his face to examine the fluid on them. She tilts her head so she can see him, and he looks both proud and fascinated by the slick on his hand, moving it back and forth and rubbing his fingers together.

It’s that look of interest, of almost childlike fascination with the way her fluids glisten and shine in the fractured winter light, that awakens something inside her. Annie sits up, her abdomen stirring again, and as Armin watches with curiosity, straddles his hips, settling herself down on top of them. She thinks she might have to explain what she wants, but Armin is nothing if not a fast learner, and he puts his hands on her thighs, leaving a glistening smear of her own fluids across one.

“Are you sure?” he asks, and Annie notices for the first time how thick his eyebrows have grown, how they’re a man’s eyebrows now, heavy and dark. She nods, bending forward and kissing one.

Armin shifts underneath her, and something blunt and rigid—his cock, she realizes, and that revelation sends more slick cascading down between her legs—nudges at her lips, pushing past them and towards her most intimate places. Still, when she moves forward, trying to impale herself on him, Armin moves away. “You won’t get pregnant?”

The question feels like it comes out of nowhere, and Annie gapes at him, shocked that he doesn’t know even these basics of reproduction and elimination. But then she remembers that he’s not like her, that he doesn’t have a warrior’s blood running through his veins, and she shakes her head. 

“Don’t worry. I know how to take care of it.”

“That’s good. I knew there had to be ways, but there isn’t anything in any of the books I read. I think it’s something passed down between women, and not something they teach men, and I never had any sisters so I wouldn’t know, and…”

She silences his nervous babbling with her mouth, covering his and growling under her breath, and Armin’s hands move from her hips to behind her back. He pulls her down, holding her tight against him, and for a moment, Annie feels tears welling up behind her eyes again. Before they can fall, she reaches between them and grasps his cock, making Armin gasp, and holds it, hot and turgid in her grip, so it points up. She moves on top of him, adjusting her hips until she can feel it at her entrance, its tip more blunt and wider than his fingers. They both stop moving, holding perfectly still for a heartbeat, for a breath, and then she pushes down onto him, forcing him up inside her all at once.

Armin cries out as he penetrates her, and Annie has to bite her lip so hard she breaks the skin to keep from doing the same. Armin isn’t an enormous man, isn’t as large as others she’s seen, but neither is Annie a large woman, and he fills her completely, stretching her walls and filling her in ways she didn’t know she needed, in ways she didn’t know could exist. Annie finds that her body knows what to do, that she doesn’t have to instruct it, and starts rocking back and forth of top of him, feeling the sweet slide of him as she pistons up and down over his lap. Armin clings to her, his eyes screwed shut like he’s in pain, and though she doesn’t stop, Annie taps him on the cheek.

“You okay?” He looks like she’s hurting him.

Armin opens one eye and looks up at her, his voice contorted and his voice breathless when he speaks. “Trying… not to go… too soon.”

That’s considerate, but Annie feels like she could ride him forever, like she could bounce up and down on him and never be satisfied, even as her inner muscles start to clench down again and she feels that building pressure inside. She pries one of his hands off her back and stuffs it between their legs again, where they’re joined. Armin gets the point and starts rubbing at that same spot again, that place at the top of her cleft where everything is hypersensitive and primed for an explosion.

It only takes a few of his touches, a little of his magic fingers, before Annie is tossing her head back and crying out, her knot squeezing around him, and the feeling of her squeeze has Armin following close behind, gasping and squinting his eyes closed again as he explodes inside her, pulsating against her knot and filling her with liquid heat.

Annie keeps him with her the rest of the day, as morning fades into afternoon and then evening; when Armin gets tired and can’t get his cock to cooperate, he uses his hands on her, and they find that that is usually all it takes for his lower appendages to take interest again. As the day wears on they become less frantic, less energetic, and knot slower, stay knotted longer. Annie can smell how his pheromones, weak though they are, change as he becomes more relaxed; Armin’s curiosity smells like lemons, she discovers, and his satisfaction like a breeze blowing across a body of water, stirring life both above and below the surface. Her own pheromones change too, become rich and layered with relief, and when they knot for the last time, her muscles barely able to hold him in at all, they take on a new scent, one she's never smelled herself make before. In her sleepy, half-dazed state, Annie doesn’t recognize it, until she realizes she’s smelled it on other cadets.

She sits bolt upright, yanking herself off Armin before her knot is completely gone, making them both wince with pain. She stares down at him, wide-eyed and filled with horror, her shoulders trembling with disbelief.

She knows that smell. She’s smelled it on Reiner, on Bertolt, on Jean and on Marco and on Hannah and Franz and on everyone else who has a mate. And now it leaks from her pores, and it can’t, _it can’t happen this way_ , and she stumbles to her feet, nearly blind with panic.

“Annie?” Armin starts to get up, starts to follow her as she grabs her clothing, and she turns on him, lips pulled back in a full, throaty snarl, eyes wild and feral. He shrinks away, holding up his hands as if to ward her off, and she flees down the ladder, nearly tripping and cracking her head open, trailing clothing behind her as she runs.

Annie runs until she’s deep in the forest, far away from the barracks, and then she lets her warrior come screaming free, exploding outwards to protect her, to _purge_ her, as she streaks through the forest, wanting to scream but daring not to, her warrior jaws clenched out against the tears streaming from her eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> At long last, we get a female alpha and a hetero pairing! It took me a long time to wrap my head around Annie, hence why this took so long. And all that tragedy that I didn't put in Namaste? It's going in here! Hooray! 8D


End file.
